OneBag

Pugwash-- Great idea about calling Viking in regard to my question--which is what I did before I started this thread. They told me to work this question thru my TA who I used to book this cruise (my bad). He replied to me that Viking told him that this info was not available yet (??) but that usual such tour is 40-40 people per bus and several busses. I should have learned by now that if I wanted timely and accurate info, I should never have booked a Viking tour.

I called and emailed Viking asking about maximum group size for the Ultimate Tour and got nowhere. Nobody would answer my question or even give a hint. They just kept telling me I could book the tour online when my booking window opens. So I booked a tour with SPB Tours instead, saving a bunch of money in the process. Absolutely fantastic tour, fantastic guide, they provided the meals, we did go inside Peterhoff, 16 people, we were able to squeeze into places larger groups could not. Sorry your travel companions are uncomfortable with the private option. I understand because I was too and so was my husband. But we are so glad with did it. We were very well cared for and felt very safe.

Roothy...the lift top drawer isn't a great idea. Most people use the desk top fDor all sorts of items and as soon as you do then the drawer underneath becomes useless....so only good for stuff you really don't need to use ...and therefore shouldn't have been packed in the first place...;-)

To each his own. I loved the lift drawer. I put all of my makeup in there and so I had a place to do my hair & makeup, leaving the bathroom free. It was great having everything separated, visible and literally at my fingertips. We were in a PV room and there was plenty of surface area; no need to pile things on top of the lift top, though things did find their way there and I had no problem moving them aside the one or two times a day I needed access underneath. Also, the QuietVox doesn't need to be taking up space and an outlet front and center. I moved it out of the way behind the useless phone.

I have only sailed twice before (both with Cunard) and if you could carry/pull your own luggage then you were allowed to disembark yourselves rather than having your luggage taken the previous night. Does anybody know if this process applies to VS. Also, does anybody know what time you need to be off the ship by on the last day?

We travel with carry-ons only and took them off the ship ourselves, no problem. We needed to vacate the stateroom by 8am but I believe breakfast was open until 9am.

We were on the 7/11 Homelands cruise. I don't know about Chef's Table rotation or bridge tours but to answer your other questions...

Port talks specific to cities and excursions were offered at least two nights before the port stops and were available the next day on the TV. We never attended a live talk but very much appreciated the TV reruns.

Bedding is standard Scandinavian fare, i.e., a too-hot fluffy thing and no top sheet. So you're either suffocating underneath or sleeping exposed. Since outside temps were cool, there was no need to throw myself into the Baltic at 3am; if the A/C wasn't up to the task, I shut it off and opened the door--which V does not want you to do but when it's cooler outside than in, that's what I'm going to do. The A/C is decent but I doubt it's sufficient to counteract the too-hot fluffy thing in the Mediterranean.

There were decaf pods in the room -- 2 unleaded and 4 leaded and I'm sure you can change that ratio if you ask; the crew is very accommodating.

Best wishes for a great cruise. We loved ours!

I suspect it is a combination of factors that taken individually are not critical. If Viking has not diagnosed the problem already it will likely need a laboratory and extensive tests to pin down. In other words, it is not likely that the cause will be identified quickly.

 

Sadly, it will likely take several more incidents before the bean counters will justify the cost of preventing further occurrences.

While they're figuring out the cause, Viking needs to install safety film immediately. Now that they know about the problem, and particularly since it has occurred more than once, there is no excuse for putting existing and future passengers at risk while the engineers sort this out.

Hello everyone,

 

We just wanted to acknowledge that we are aware of these two shower incidents, and Viking Customer Relations is in touch with both couples involved. We are very concerned that these accidents happened, and Viking Star’s engineers are actively assessing what could have caused this. Regardless, we are deeply concerned for our guests who experienced this, and we are committed to making it up to them.

 

Sincerely,

Viking Cruises

Please keep us posted on the results of the engineers' active assessment--including the fix. As someone who very much enjoyed our July 11 cruise and would like to book another cruise, I can tell you that I absolutely would not unless and until I am assured that I will be safe from exploding glass while in the bathroom. There is no way I would travel on a ship with that hazard unresolved, and I suspect my feelings are shared by many, so it would be best to communicate real information once you have it, rather than more canned "deeply concerned" responses.

That kind of boiler plate is for situations where the mail may have gotten delivered to someone other than the intended recipient. It is not intended as a non-disclosure statement for the intended recipient. Fairly standard in business communications.

 

So you do not have anything to ask forgiveness for

I agree there is no need to ask forgiveness but if you are saying that reposting entire emails without first asking the sender if that's okay is perfectly fine, then I disagree. It's common courtesy regardless of legalities.

OK OneBag, you got me. I did not read the boilerplate fine print on the message so I am guilty, but her response was helpful and useful information that others on this problem filled trip were also requesting. So I guess I'm asking forgiveness now rather than permission. I might add this Viking Rep responded rapidly when information has been in short supply and gave me renewed confidence that Viking might actually be able to pull off this logistical nightmare. Her responses to other emails have been forwarded on various threads but if she objects to this one, I have no problem with TA deleting the thread.

Not trying to get you. I think it's great to share info. My concern is that posting entire emails might discourage candid email communication. Paraphrasing the content, leaving out email addresses and phone extensions and such, seems to me like a better option. Best of luck to you and all on the 8/8 cruise. I hope there are no more surprises.

Dear Mr. Shipman:

 

Thank you for your email...

 

<<<snipped>>>

 

This message w/attachments (message) is intended solely for the intended recipient(s) and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or proprietary. If you are not an intended recipient, please notify the sender, and then please delete and destroy all copies and attachments, and be advised that any review or dissemination within the public domain of the information contained in or attached to this message is prohibited.

 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: <<<snipped>>>

 

I assume you got permission from the sender to share the content of her email.

We've thought about it and have decided that in light of the recent events with the Star, delays in one of the ships until 2017, and the ridiculous policy to pay in full 18 months before the trip that we aren't willing to book at this time. I want to give the company 6 months or so to see if they continue to have problems or fix some of the things people seem unhappy about before considering such a financial layout. If the mid-2017 sailings we are interested in are still available 6-8 months from now (and we haven't fallen in love with something else) we will consider it.

 

Thank you all for your responses.

It's a big decision, I agree, and the current mechanical issue has people understandably freaked out. However I do want to say that we were on the July 11 Homelands cruise and had a wonderful time. I have not wanted to post a glowing review while folks are still suffering huge disappointment and discomfort due to the mechanical issue. It feels like rubbing salt in a wound. But I feel it's only fair to mention that we did not see or experience any of the significant issues that were revealed during the maiden voyage. While there is always room for improvement, I believe Viking is paying attention to feedback. I can't speak highly enough for the ship or the crew or our experience on board. A couple of excursions need some work, but the majority were well organized and quite good. We had a fantastic time and were sad to leave the ship. While I believe there is still work to do on communication at the Woodland Hills level, communication on board was fine. We would not hesitate to travel on a Viking Oceans ship again.

Moody's recently assigned B3 to $250 million senior unsecured notes due 2025 for V Oceans' new ship construction. This is on top of Moody's B3 rating on existing $525 million due in 2022, so clearly Viking isn't building ships purely with current revenue (that's not even possible).

Currently Viking appears to be quite solvent, but when we paid in full for a cruise 18+ months in advance, we bought travel insurance that protected us against trip cancellation/interruption if the carrier ceases operations due to insolvency. We didn't look at Viking's travel plan because it did not cover it's own insolvency. Credit card companies may or may not reimburse--there is usually a requirement to make the claim within 60 days of billing though some extend that or will work with you, so that's something to find out before making the charge.

There is almost never anything left for unsecured creditors--which ticket holders are--in a bankruptcy and even if there is, it's usually no more than pennies on the dollar and can take years to resolve.

I was told that a chip and pin will default to pin first and will go signature if there is an issue with communications and validation. Now that might just be the one I was carrying. I have run across an article that also say that many US ones do default to signature first. I guess the only way to find out for sure is to try them in a place where signature is not an option (kiosks). Your issuing company might be able confirm the priority for your specific card.

 

I must say that I found having it default to pin first worked smoother in Europe, compared to having to sign.

Signing is inconvenient and defeats the whole purpose of the added security of needing to use a PIN with the card. Nobody here in Scandinavia has ever once even glanced at my name or signature, never mind asked for ID. So truly anybody can use the card. Our options in the U.S. are improving but still limited. This spreadsheet is pretty handy when card shopping or trying to figure out how our cards work: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ani-u3tGk5hedGRvcE1ELVg5UmlGZk01SHZvTUMxdUE

Then my guess is that we did not get real Chip & PIN cards despite what the banks told us....arghh!

You might have. The thing is, most U.S. "true" chip & PIN cards default to signature verification and only if that doesn't work (at an unmanned kiosk, for example) will it next default to PIN verification. So you end up signing almost everywhere but your card will work as PIN if necessary. (It's good to carry a pen.) So they are "true" c&p in the sense that they will work that way but only if signature verification fails. Some credit cards with an EMV chip and a PIN allow signature verification only and the PIN is only provided to get cash from an ATM (don't do it $$$). Very few U.S. credit cards are real, true chip & PIN in the sense that they default to PIN verification. We've in Scandinavia now and have had no problems in Denmark, Sweden or Norway with our "defaults to signature first, then PIN) cards. I understand that if we're to go far off the beaten trail it could be an issue, but no one on a Viking cruise will be able to stray that far.

We're on the plane, heading for some pre-cruise adventure before boarding on 7/11. It's great to hear from folks on board--especially good to read that some of the snafus have been worked out and people are happy!

I feel like I do when one of my adult children goes radio silent. On the one hand, it's none of my business. On the other, I worry.

I too hope all is well with Ukalady and her mom!

I totally understand why Viking wouldn't want to open up the Wishlist too far in advance of the booking window. Presumably they would like to be able to tweak the excursions as needed, and having things disappear off a Wishlist is disconcerting.

My suggestion to Viking would be that they clean up their web site message:

"If booking is not yet open, you may want to browse and use your Wishlist..."

This is confusing, because it implies that the Wishlist is available once the MVJ account is set up.

Also, the MVJ message that you are X days away from your booking window should include information regarding the Wishlist -- e.g. that it will be available a few weeks prior or whatever. Otherwise, people are confused and keep looking for it, calling Viking, asking about it here on CC...all completely unnecessary.

Ours became available about 3 weeks before our booking window opened.

Oh dear... What to say.... Some info was helpful and would be helpful to Viking. But an awful lot was just complaining and indeed nitpicky...

Actually Elizabeth took the time and trouble to distinctly prioritize her comments and even used the term "nit picky" herself.

Clearly many issues were maiden voyage related...

Yes, and clearly Elizabeth made that point several times throughout her very thorough, very well written review of her personal experience on the maiden voyage.

and have already been fixed....

This remains to be seen. That Gdansk brewery tour that isn't actually a brewery tour is still being billed as a brewery tour by Viking. I'll let you know if Viking has done anything about that next month after we've completed that excursion. Thanks to Elizabeth, my husband and I won't be disappointed. We are taking the excursion anyway because of the visit to the Granary and because none of the other options appeal to us. But thanks to a maiden voyager's complaint, we're expecting a beer in a restaurant, not a brewery tour.

I would prefer to let the paid cheerleaders who got the fast wifi do the cheerleading and let us regular folk report our own experiences as we experienced them, but maybe that's just me.

Correct. One on each wrist. I've worn them on several cruises now, including one on a small yacht that got pitched about quite a bit in a New England storm. In the past I would have had to be knocked out with heavy duty drugs, but I felt fine. Try them - if they don't work, no big investment. And the great part is, no side effects - no drowsiness, no dry mouth.

Thanks, Elizabeth, I am going to give them a try. :)

I'm particularly susceptible to seasickness, and I recently discovered "Sea Bands" which are elastic bands that fit around around your wrists with pressure points that you position on the inside of your wrists. I have found these work remarkably well. I had taken patches, prescription pills, Bonnine, and Dramamine with me on this trip, and only had to use my Sea Bands. You can get them at CVS, they are cheap, and worth a try. We were on for 50 days and had some rough seas in the Atlantic, as well as Stavanger.

OMG those things really work? I was just at CVS yesterday and looked at them and thought, nah, that sounds like voodoo and bought Bonine and ginger gum instead. But you've got me rethinking this. There were 2 in the box so I assume you have wear one on each wrist?

After reading the bashing we are getting for reviewing our recent Star cruise, I will say that I never heard of this site until approximately 2 months prior to our departure. I was told about it on another site and decided to check it out.

Yes, we have been on other Viking river cruises but never reviewed our experiences before. We also were on a Carnival Cruise of the millennium, and a Dolphin cruise line man-years ago.

If Cruise Critics is so worried about the influx of new members submitting reviews, perhaps they should ignore them and just post what they want.

I'm confused as to why you felt bashed. You were not one of the "0 posts" reviewers that raised some eyebrows. You, like, me, may be new to CC but you had posted before, and in the Viking forum, well before your review. Thank you for taking the time to share your experience.

It is not only perfectly reasonable to be cautious about such reviews, it is prudent. By now it is old and tired advice to be very skeptical of reviews from users who have no posts and no other reviews -- whether they are good reviews or bad reviews, whether we are looking at TripAdvisor, Yelp, Amazon, CruiseCritic, or wherever. This doesn't mean that all such reviews are plants or fake. It means they *could* be and one should be cautious about making purchasing decisions based on such reviews.

I hate to be a doubting Thomas but that is exactly what I noticed as well. The reviews went from 17 to 42 in one day! Almost of all the reviewers are new members to CC in 2015 with no previous posts. Sorry - but I don't buy it.

And they all read like they were written by the same PR person.

This is what my husband and I do when we travel overseas (our adult son and daughter are together in London right now and they are doing this and it is working well).

Mobile carrier's global plan

I add that to our lines which gives us minimal data, texts and voice to use when wifi is not an option (we use Verizon). We only use that when absolutely necessary. We lock down our phones to be sure they don't start doing things and use up all of our data the instant we turn cellular data on.

Boingo app on both phones

Before we leave I activate Boingo's Mobile service which permits usage on 2 mobile devices are re-download the mobile app. $4.99 first month, $9.99/mo. I think after that, I have no problems turning service off upon return. This opens up more wifi options in addition to whatever free public wifi hotspots are available.

FB messaging app

I hate FB but I love the messaging app, and almost everyone we want to hear from or send text and photos to is on FB (the few that aren't get relegated to email). When connected to wifi, FB messaging--text as well as photos and videos--works great and does voice calls between FB contacts if the bandwidth is good enough. With the click of a button, you can "pin" your location which allows the person on the other end to see a map showing exactly where you are. Which is cool. I can vicariously travel along with my kids as they make their way from pub to pub across London. :roll eyes: My son sent me a "made it" text, dropped a pin, and I could see he was at the AirBnB. My daughter dropped a PIN plus a video of the two of them having a pint outside a pub in Kensington. All done over wifi. (I know Skype, WhatsApp and others do similar things but getting people to download them and use them is like herding cats. With FB messaging, if they use FB, even without the app on their phone, they will get the message on their FB page.) With the mobile app you can also see if your contacts are offline or on and if your message has been sent, received, or read. I don't own stock in FB. Did I mention I hate FB? But the app is good, intuitive and fun to use.

Between free public wifi, hotel wifi, and Boingo, we usually have very little trouble connecting in most cities in Western and Southern Europe and Scandinavia. This frees up our global data, text and voice allocation for communicating with each other when we're apart. (Our phones weren't very smart when we traveled in Eastern Europe so I don't know what the public wifi situation is there as I did not drag my laptop around town with me to find out.) Verizon supposedly has a new global wifi app you can use if you have their global plan but I haven't tried it and the reviews aren't good.

Obviously we don't want to spend our port time sitting at Starbucks doing things we could be doing while at sea. I am hoping the wifi situation on the Star isn't awful. Not Awful is acceptable. Good is better, but Not Awful works.

Thanks for the input. My Journey says 240 days until I can see my excursions, so no port information. I know I can see the excursions on the site, but is there another place to look for port times?

I was able to see port times in my calendar at MVJ long before I could see excursions. I could see port times the minute I signed up for MVJ but my experience wouldn't be relevant because MVJ didn't exist for much of my waiting time.